I always seem drawn to a bands 1st couple of albums....they usuaully have the raw sound that they envisioned....before the big Record Companies step in and take over. then it becomes over-produced (i.e. Aerosmith).

me too. see, we usually end up agreeing

that is why i said first 2 albums, and a lot of bands only have 2 good albums in them if they are lucky.

usually after the first 2 albums they all have alcohol and drug problems so then they sober up and once they do that the music goes down hill......

or they are not schooled musicians so they can't adapt to actually writing something after they have exhausted their limited musical repertoire.

Note: there have been and will be lots of great musicians that can't read or write music but put out tons of great stuff but they are the exception. The schooled musician has a fantastic edge on the non schooled, at least in the kinds of music I like. They can draw on any type of music they wish because they know the language and become more well rounded, which shows in their music.

note: IMO.:) which isn't worth a piss hole in the snow most days

If you think about it most bands first record is like a greatest hits of everything they have done before. All of the songs they have written have been whittled down to their best 10-14 for that first album. After the album is out they are on the road, doing promo, getting burned out etc., and the opportunity to write and arrange just gets less and less. This has become a bigger problem in the cd age where you now have to come up with 60 -70 minutes of music. In the lp day you could have a release with 8 songs at 38 minutes on it and have some material left over for later lps. One reason why I think the quality on the Steely Dan albums were so high was that they did not tour giving them more time to work on the material.
As for Aerosmith, while I liked individual songs they always seemed to be clones of the Stones.

yes good points. if you are trying to make a living in the music biz you need to make money to pay the bills and what ever it takes is what you have to do.

As far as steely dan goes that was one reason they made great music, another was they were very musically talented, educated and hired great accent, studio guys to be on their albums. I am sure most of the people on their albums were thrilled to go and collaborate with such highly skilled people. It pushed, challenged, gave great pleasure, to them to be better musicians.
Their are bands that are in it as a job, $$$, and their are bands, musicians that are in it for arts sake and the monetary gains are not as important. Now I bet many of them started off thinking they were in it for arts sake but eventually they get sucked in, reality hits. This is a job, be it either they had to pay bills or really liked all the $$$, and or they were pushed by the companies they signed up with to get to work. It is a very tough biz to be in plus you have to find people that are interested in what you are doing. Lots of casualties in that biz. I am glad I got the easy side , listening.:uhuh:

The talent with Steely Dan was there no doubt. They are the only act I can think of where each album was better than the last, at least up to Aja.